


What Kind of Man

by WhiteOak



Category: Layton Brothers: Mystery Room, Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, LBMR Secret Santa 2017, Self-Hatred, comatose Alfendi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 17:49:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13012992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteOak/pseuds/WhiteOak
Summary: After the events of Forbodium Castle, Justin sits by Alfendi's bed while the other lies comatose, attempting to brainwash him with the book he's found. As grieving friends and family come and go, he is consumed in equal parts by the fear of his crimes being discovered, and the guilt of betraying his colleague.LBMR Secret Santa for tumblr user Snozzlefrog, who requested Potty Prof, Justin Lawson, and angst.





	What Kind of Man

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a fair bit shorter, but I got a little carried away. 
> 
> I don't have a beta, so I hope this is readable. Apologies for any mistakes!

"You were out of breath when you reached the top of the tower. So you had to pause for a moment when you reached the doorway to, uh... get your breath back. Makepeace was already there. ...Um. It was raining."

 _Paint an image in words of the scene you want them to 'remember',_ says the book. _Include information from as many senses as you can, to make it seem more real in their mind's eye. Tell them what they could see, hear, smell or feel._

He's read the advice so often that he can recite it from memory now, but that's not making it any easier to try to convince an unconscious Alfendi that he was the one who shot Makepeace.

_Base the scene on things which really happened to make it more believable, and easier for the brain to accept._

Justin clears his throat again awkwardly. "Yes, er, raining harder than it was before."

He glances down at the notes he's scribbled in the margins of the book. He's pretty sure the rain picked up harder when they reached the battlements, but honestly the night is such a blur he can't be certain.

"You can... feel the drops of rain on your skin. They feel, uh... wet."

He sighs and runs a hand over his face. He never was good at using his imagination.

 

He looks down at the sleeping man before him. Alfendi's breathing is shallow, his features more relaxed than Justin has ever seen them while he was awake. It makes him feel uncomfortable. 

Al doesn't do relaxed. Never did.

Al is all passion and raw energy, almost a force of nature. He never pauses, never rests, never stops thinking.

Even the few times Justin has seen him asleep, when the three of them, he, Al and Hilda, had been working late into the night and burnt themselves out, Al has never truly looked at peace. He sleeps lightly, restlessly, ready to wake at the slightest disturbance. He twitches, frowns, mumbles disconnected words in his dreams. Sometimes he sits bolt upright, woken by his own thoughts, and stares at the opposite wall with fierce, searching eyes, before slowly lowering his head and closing his eyes once more.

 

But not now.

Now he lies still and lifeless, sleeping so deeply no one can wake him.

And it's Justin's fault. He did that.

His finger may not have been the one that pulled the trigger, but to all extents and purposes, he shot Al.

His colleague.

His friend. 

 

Where did he go so wrong?  

When the whole business with Makepeace started out, the only targets he chose were truly evil. Sure, it was illegal, but he was doing a public service. The world was better, safer, without them.  

But Al? 

Al did the world nothing but good. He is rude, certainly, tends to be brash, even violent at times, but anyone who stuck around long enough to get to know him knows for sure that he is a good man.  

If  _Justin_  were any sort of good man, he would confess to his crimes, admit he took things too far, free Al from suspicion and finally have closure.  

But he's not a good man.  

He's a coward.  

Too weak to kill the man lying before him, too scared of what he'll say when he wakes up to let him recover.  

Attempting a brainwash is his only option now. There is no other way out.  

 

And so, Justin reads on.  

 

He has to stop whenever visitors pass through.  

Hilda visits almost every day, but luckily for Justin she can never bear to stay for long. She sweeps in, all efficiency and poise, heels clicking purposefully on the floor. She tries her best to appear as collected as always, but she can't help but falter whenever she passes through the doorway and sees Al prone on the bed.  

Every day like clockwork she pauses, swallows, gives herself a little shake before crossing the floor quickly to sit in the free visitor's chair, opposite Justin.  

She always draws her jacket tighter around her shoulders and mutters that it's cold in the ward, and Justin always nods, even though it isn't, and they both know it's not the reason she's shaking.  

Still, Hilda Pertinax is never one to let something as small as grief get in the way of business, and soon she has opened her handbag and is bringing out her notepad and pen, going over her theories with Justin.  

Poor Hilda. 

She's working so hard to work out how Al could be innocent, how someone else could be responsible for Makepeace's death.  

He cuts down her ideas as gently as he can. It breaks his heart to do it, to see the hope fading in her eyes, the sharp little nod of acceptance she gives each time he points out a flaw in her logic, her eyes not quite meeting his, her shoulders falling almost imperceptibly. But he has to do it. She can't be allowed to find out the truth. No one can.  

After she has run out of ideas for the day, he usually tries to be sympathetic.  

"I know it hurts, but we have to face the facts, Hilda," he says, and even though it's a dirty lie, he doesn't have to fake the sorrow in his eyes, the way his voice hitches as he speaks. "I don't want to believe it either, but what choice do we have?"

By now her eyes are always sparkling with tears, although she holds her head high and will never allow herself to shed them in front of him. 

She bids him farewell, tells him she has to go, that she has to get back to work, and again he nods, even though they both know the Commissioner gave them several weeks' leave to recover from the shock of Al's condition. 

Then she turns to Al's sleeping form, places her hand over his and squeezes gently, stooping to kiss him quickly on the lips. 

Then she is gone, and Justin is left with nothing but the smell of her perfume and the weight of crushing guilt doubled on his shoulders. What kind of man takes a woman's love away from her like this, and then lies to her, actively prevents her from find out the truth? 

  

Worse still is when Al's family visits.  

He's met the famous Professor Hershel Layton a couple of times before this, but that was a long time ago. Now, he can't quite match the fine gentleman with the polite but confident air with the weary, elderly man before him.  

Although he still wears his trademark top hat, the professor looks smaller somehow, tired, fragile.  

He never says much. 

He is still unfailingly polite, always thanking the hospital staff for their care and wishing them a good day, greeting Justin with a tired smile and a soft "How are you fairing today, Detective Lawson?"

But when he takes up the other visitor's chair and his eyes fix on his son's face, the pain is always clear in his eyes.  

Although the professor doesn’t visit every day, the visits he does make are usually long.  

He can sit for hours at his son's side, unmoving, his face unreadable, his gaze never wavering from Alfendi's face, as if it might hold some answer.  

Justin can't bear to watch him.  

Around this time, he usually excuses himself and goes to stretch his legs, and doesn't come back until he knows the professor has left.  

The guilt is so tangible it's almost a physical pain.  

 

Sometimes Al's siblings are there too.  

Sometimes there is a well-dressed, elegant woman, large eyes glittering with tears, who always brings fresh flowers for the vase on the dresser. The staff address her as Lady Reinhold, but the woman introduced herself simply as Flora the first time she visited. She always greets him politely, like her father, but unlike the professor Flora has often cried openly as she sits by her little brother's side. 

Sometimes there is a teenage girl, silent and subdued, who gazes down at her big brother with unblinking blue eyes, her features set in the same unreadable expression as her father. Justin assumes this is Katrielle, although she exhibits none of the boisterous curiosity Al has described. She is every bit as grave and serious as the adults around her. 

 

On days when all three are present, they huddle close together, standing or sitting shoulder to shoulder. A silent vigil, united by their love, and their grief, for Al. Oblivious to the fact that the one responsible for their pain is the weary man sitting across the ward from them, who they'd so graciously wished good day a moment ago.  

The first time Justin saw the broken little family having to support each other through this trauma he'd felt  _so_  awful, so horribly,  _horribly_  guilty for what he was doing to them, that he'd left immediately and been violently sick in the toilet down the hallway.  

What kind of man would make such a kind, mild-mannered family suffer such torment?  

They didn't deserve this.  

 

"You can just see Makepeace through the rain. You feel...um, angry. At him. Yeah." 

His hands are shaking, making it hard to read the book they hold.  

God, what would Al say if he could see him now? If he was here now, sitting in the visitor's chair across from him, rather than comatose in the hospital bed.  

 _I'd rather cut off my own ears than listen to any more of this drivel, Lawson._  

The words spring to his mind unbidden and he snorts, despite himself. Sounds about right.  

He sighs and looks back down at his notes.  

"You pull out your gun. You hold it tightly in both hands, pointing it in front of you. The metal feels cold on your hands. It's difficult to see in the driving rain, hard to aim," Justin continues, warming to his theme. 

"You fire one shot. It hits Makepeace in the side. He staggers. You can see blood spreading across the front of his shirt. You can hear shouts below, and you know the rest of us have arrived - me, Hilda and the Commissioner."  

 

Ah, the Commissioner.  

The Commissioner, who was one of the first to visit, even before Al's own family. 

The Commissioner, who'd wrung his hands, and dabbed at his eyes, and hung his head. 

Who'd whispered "This was my fault, Justin," so softly the detective almost hadn't heard him.  

"I should have handled things better. I should have kept a closer eye on Alfendi. I should have gotten there sooner. Then maybe he'd still be with us."

And although had Justin tried his best to console him, his words were empty, hollow, and they could both hear it.  

Everything he  _wanted_  to say, to convince the poor man he wasn't at fault, would land him in a jail cell quick as blinking.  

 _It's not your fault,_  he wants to say,  _it's_ _mine._ _I did this_ _._   

But he doesn't, because he's a coward.  

 

"Makepeace is backed up against the wall now, clutching his side, pulling out his own gun. He's aiming it at you. You can see his arm shaking. You know he's going to shoot you if you don't act now."  

If he was telling the truth, by this point in the story Al would have been shot and be bleeding out on the stones, while Makepeace would be staggering around to fool Hilda, despite being unharmed.  

But this isn't the truth. This is a web of lies Justin is feverishly spinning to protect himself from the consequences of his own actions.  

"You hear me shouting 'Don't shoot Al!' and glance towards the sound of my voice. You can just make out my shape through the rain, waving at you. You turn away. Makepeace is armed, and dangerous. You know you can't follow my orders...so... so you..." 

He slows, the words sticking in his throat because they're so  _wrong_.  

"You shoot him once more...uh... once more in... in the... head..."

 

Except  _he_  didn't, goddammit.  _Justin_  did.  

 _Al_  didn't.   

Al would never.  

 

But if Justin has his way, everyone is going to believe he did.  

Hilda, the Commissioner, Sniffer, Florence, everyone in the force is going to believe it.  

His family is going to believe it.  

 _Al_  is going to believe it.  

Justin is going to be the only one who will know the truth.  

 

Justin can't help himself - he begins to cry.  

What is he doing? What kind of man has he become? 

He became a policeman to  _find_  the truth, not hide it away.  

He hates himself.  

He is so, so scared. Scared and alone.   

He's trapped himself in a nightmare, unable to reach out to anyone, living in constant fear of discovery, and constant, crushing guilt. And there's no one to blame but himself.

He stays there for some time, shoulders bowed, shaking with sobs.  

Hospital staff come and go, checking in on Al's vitals, but they are professionals and trained to keep their faces carefully blank. A crying visitor is no uncommon sight in a hospital, after all.  

  

After what seems like hours, he runs out of tears. Slowly, clumsily, he pulls out his handkerchief and blows his nose, and replaces it in his pocket.  

He raises his head and stares out of the window for a moment, watching the world continue on outside, blissfully unaware. 

Then, almost mechanically, he turns back to Al, finds his place in the book, and begins to read once more. 

  

-End- 

 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @dont-drop-your-ascots


End file.
